Izzedine is frightened, Mr. Eid said, frightened of the gunfire, the sonic booms in the darkness without electricity, the buzzing of the surveillance drones overhead.

''Normally he's very peaceful,'' said Mr. Eid, 30, a primary school English teacher who grew up in this southern Gaza area of farms and open fields. ''I know psychologically he's very upset, and it's making us all upset. As an adult, we don't cry for our lives, but how can you see a child screaming and shaking?''

Mr. Eid stopped and smiled shyly, running a hand over his short-cropped beard.

''It's tension we're eating and drinking here,'' he said. ''We are living in tension and sleeping in tension and waking up in tension, when we can sleep.''

His wife feels it, too, he said, and his brother, who works for the security services and has not been paid for five months now, and his mother, who has high blood pressure.

''I know the Israelis want their soldier,'' he said of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, who was captured in a raid into Israel on June 25. Israel believes that he is being held near here in southern Gaza, in Rafah or the Khan Yunis refugee camp.

Then he apologized again. ''It's my passion speaking,'' he said, but ''everyone is very anxious, and I fear for my son. Resistance comes from the womb of suffering.''

Mr. Eid speaks nearly fluent English, only stopping rarely to check an Arabic word with an interpreter. He has not been paid in five months, either, with the Palestinian government under economic pressure. Due $500 a month, he was given $300 by the Hamas-led government about a month ago.

The West has cut off most aid, and Israel is withholding the $55 million a month it collects for the Palestinian Authority in customs and duties.

''The Israelis are stealing our money,'' he said. ''This is politics and ideology, but my kids are hungry and need milk.'' The Israelis say they ''want a partner for peace,'' he said. ''But my son won't grow up to be a partner for peace.''

Asked whether he understood that Israeli parents feel similarly about their children in places hit by Qassam rockets fired from Gaza, Mr. Eid nodded.

So why are Hamas and the other militants, two of whom died here on Thursday, provoking Israel?

He thought for a moment, then said: ''It's not that we want to fight. It's because they are killing us and we need to defend ourselves and we are helpless.''

He said he did not believe Israeli leaders when they promised that Israel would ''provide quiet for quiet,'' saying that the Israelis had broader aims to control the Palestinians and take their land. ''They need to understand that there are people here,'' he said. ''Peace doesn't come through violence, but understanding.''

But Israel withdrew from Gaza last summer. How did he feel then? Mr. Eid smiled broadly. ''A year ago we were very happy, it was like a festival,'' he said. ''We went to the sea, where we couldn't go, we felt like free people.'' There was another burst of gunfire. ''And now they're back,'' he said, ''and our children are clutching at us.''